


for the far too young to die

by angryelftwink



Series: no one can touch you now that you're mine [2]
Category: Dragon Age: Origins
Genre: M/M, Post-Dragon Age: Origins Quest - The Landsmeet, post Dragon Age Origins quest- Captured!
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-02
Updated: 2020-07-02
Packaged: 2021-03-04 17:41:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 999
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25040293
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/angryelftwink/pseuds/angryelftwink
Summary: He thinks—better, how the dwarves do it. Better to be honest from the start. Warring against darkspawn is only a job for the dead.
Relationships: Zevran Arainai/Male Brosca
Series: no one can touch you now that you're mine [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1812061
Comments: 2
Kudos: 7
Collections: ZevWarden Week 2020





	for the far too young to die

**Author's Note:**

> So I swear to you I read somewhere that wearing a single bracer is a betrothal custom in Orzammar culture but I cannot find a source for this so please just accept that it is a thing here.

Zevran thinks about it too much.

Angharad is still asleep, thankfully, bare shoulders still carrying marks from Fort Drakon. Zevran knows enough to know they didn't really rough him up too badly. He knows enough to know they would have, and so does Angharad.

They've admitted they're engaged, or at least Oghren said it and they couldn't deny. That means a future, and Zevran thinks about it too much. First, there's the Blight. They can't help but try to end it every chance they get, but Blights are Blights. He'll give it a few battles before he starts to hint at joining up. Then he'll beg. If he has to, Zevran thinks, combing through Angharad's untamed curls, he will go to Alistair instead.

Alistair will understand. Zevran would rather Angharad lose him trying to survive than lose him a ghoul. Better to not have to mercy kill. Better to remember him at the noblest he can be.

He ignores horrible battlefield deaths. The best, as Angharad has explained it. He imagines the best. In thirty years they die together in the Deep Roads. Bodies unburned, no sapling planted to guide them. Nothing but the darkspawn and each other.

"Now, that would not be so bad, eh?" It hurts to breathe, so he chuckles. "Yes, I think that is the only way it could go. Daggers drawn, side by side, amor. Me, I could settle down and take a coward's death, but you..."

Angharad will die in battle. He will go out nobly and stupidly. It burns his throat to think of and he kisses his love, his fiance, on the shoulders. He nestles back into the warmth of Angharad's chest and wishes it was different.

"You would hate it, anyway. To be sixty and useless in a cottage by the sea." He can imagine it, though. Angharad with white hair fussing over something, the smell of Antivan sea air, and a himself that is barely himself. Zevran cannot make himself grow white in this fantasy, but maybe greying. Welcoming Alistair and Leliana, both aged gracefully-- but not as gracefully as Angharad, overjoyed at their visit. They dine and talk-- of how wonderful things are, why not, how Ferelden is fertile and the Dalish have a homeland and Orzammar has fallen into the flames.

Angharad at peace. Knowing he has done enough. No longer afraid. It would be beautiful, he thinks.

But there is this, now, and no point in thinking life will go on past tomorrow. And the fact that hurts means life is good enough already.

“I hope we get to pretend, amor,” he whispers, thinking of cottages by the sea. “But then again, it may be a mercy if we do not.”

~

It hits Angharad once Alistair leaves the room.

He sinks down into the armchair, in Denerim’s palace that is temporarily theirs. He thinks—better, how the dwarves do it. Better to be honest from the start. Warring against darkspawn is only a job for the dead.

Alistair has a chance, but he thinks of Cailan nailed up and rotting and nearly retches at the memory. Ancestors, he wants someone to be safe. One little glimmer of hope as Ferelden shrivels and dies. They spoke at the Landsmeet after, about the Blight, and Angharad didn’t listen. He only held Zevran’s hand, and nodded along when Alistair gestured.

Sometimes, Zevran is enough. But neither of them can forget that this is a game, and was always a game, for long enough. Angharad briefly entertains thoughts of ripping cushions apart, tossing vases and whatever else will break loud enough—something to satisfy like bones breaking beneath his fist.

But you have to explain that, eventually. Even his own body isn’t safe from that. There is no more outlet for rage, because a Grey Warden is a better man than that.

So yes, that would be a good way to die. Letting himself get torn apart, bloody knuckles and lips once more. No longer having to be anything but rage, and then no more rage to hate. To burn with no ashes after.

And isn’t that fairer to them all than continuing to live? He’s so close to the end of his rope, so close to breaking—he should have slaughtered his way through Fort Drakon, he should have burnt it, and no one would ever have been the wiser.

Try to remember they have families. Try to remember they had no more choice than you, or Zevran, or Alistair, or Leliana, and _when does it end_?

Why is the most calming thing he can think of not Rica and Endrin, or Zevran’s kiss, but Howe’s blood on his blade?

Angharad comes to himself with nails in his palms and slowly unclenches his hands. He turns them over, staring at the bright red marks. Once again, he wishes the Qun either made more or less sense.

Besides, his life is not his own. That’s a decision he made long ago. Angharad stands and paces the room, grown slightly chilly with the night. The carvings and tapestries are so Ferelden. At least he will die in Ferelden. No matter what, he will die in Ferelden.

“Another Landsmeet, then,” he says to the empty table. “Debating another matter of claim. Who has the right to my life— the Grey Wardens or Zevran Arainai?”

He realizes one of the tapestries is of Andraste. She argues for the Grey Wardens, he decides. She calls on all to die for duty and honor.

And those mabari—they lost their own at Ostagar. The war must be won, to honor that sacrifice.

“And you, King Calenhad, I think?” Angharad squints at the tapestry. “I don’t know anything about you. You can abstain.”

As for Zevran’s claim—the gold earring on his left, the single bracer on his right. These remind how he has promised, how he _is_ promised—and it is a stalemate.

The only one who hasn’t voted is Angharad himself.

He leaves, instead.


End file.
